I think new users are especially inclined to vote up headlines related to previously popular articles, regardless of the new article's standalone value. They ma

I think new users are especially inclined to vote up headlines related to previously popular articles, regardless of the new article's standalone value. They may think it contributes to the discussion and deserves the same attention. Then suddenly one topic dominates the top slots and most links are junk. Usually, the new article is a hurried blog post that links back to the old, popular one, often in the first paragraph. One rudimentary way to stop this behavior would be to check if the new article contains a very recently popular link.